Page 1 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings
CHAPTER ONE
BLOODFLIES AND BROOMSTICKS
Kari
My fingers molded the soft clay as if I were a goddess and the pliable substance was the foundation of my next realm. Stretching and pulling at the clay, I began shaping it into something reminiscent of a bowl. Pottery wasn’t my strong suit growing up, but once my mother and sisters passed over to Hel—presumably—I’d been left to pick up their slack. I’d been making everything for myself these past few years, from wooden spoons to clothing, but that’s what happened when you lived alone at the ripe old age of twenty-seven.
I wasn’t fully alone, I supposed, but my only source of company typically made my life more challenging. My belongings were often found broken or torn, thanks to the orange, furry gremlin that occupied my longhouse. Thankfully, he didn’t require me to make his meals—not anymore, at least.
Speaking of… Where in the nine realms is he?
Whenever I went too long without hearing from him, my heart began to tighten. My worry didn’t stem from somethinghappening to him—that longship had sailed. I worried the little bugger got into something he shouldn’t have, yet again.
I pushed back my chair, its wooden legs scraping across the dirt floor as I rose from my seat.
“Tove?” I called out, careful not to let the neighbors hear. They thought I was mad enough as it was, always talking to myself as if the spirits of my family had stuck around. In truth, that phase only lasted a few months, and eventually, they disappeared, one by one, to their afterlife.
Those few months with my family were bittersweet. I often tacked “sweet” to that sentiment to dull my guilt, but most days were more bitter, knowing I couldn’t join them. My sisters had attempted to cut the threads the Norns had woven for me to see that I could leave this mortal plane. I didn’t think theywantedto kill me, but they were young and angry, and they yearned for their eldest sister to hold their hand as they ventured into their eternal rest.
Was that yet another lie I told myself? Maybe. Maybe the two young girls grew angry and resentful, watching me eat, sleep, and do all the things they would never do on Midgard again, and they wanted to punish me for going off to the market that day. Maybe they wanted to punish me for surviving.
A sinister mew pulled me out of my spiraling mind. I had no reason to be in that dark and twisted place anyway.
“Tove! How many times have I told you not to play with the cloth coverings?” I asked, rushing over to a long wooden table shoved up against the far wall of my bedchamber. I adjusted the cloth-covered mirror that threatened to fall to the knick-knacks below.
The cat simply mewed at me again and carried on with his nonsense, hopping off the cluttered wooden table and sauntering across the compacted dirt floor. I shook my head as the tips of my fingers lingered over the rough fabric, its edgesnow stained with orange clay and specks of charcoal soot. A daring spark lingered somewhere deep within me, urging my fearful heart to yank the cloth off the reflective surface.
Who was I fooling? I knew exactly what would await me once the fabric dropped to the dirt and revealed my cursed reflection. My eyes fell shut, memories being plucked over countless years, all haunting. As my eyes flew open, I cleared my throat and dropped my tempted hand. I stumbled backward, and I caught myself on the edge of my bed.
Nothing good would come of adding another memory to my collection. As it was, the ones I stored in my mind were beginning to fester and overflow. There was only so much the mind could forget, and I despised my ability to remember despite my best efforts. I feared one more terrible memory added to the collection may very well break me. Or maybe… No. No, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe this time would be different. I wouldn’t allow my mind to trick me once again into taking a peek at my cursed eyes.
Pulling my hand from the end of my bed, I traced my fingers over the smooth skin of my eyelids, feeling tiny blood vessels and the movement of my wandering eyes underneath. My eyelashes tickled my callused fingers as they fluttered. Everything about the way my eyes felt under my light touch was normal. There was no bumpy, raised flesh, no puss or goo, and surely, the tone of my skin matched the rest of my body. It wasn’t an unending well of black rot, unlike what my reflection would tell me.
They were all lies, I liked to tell myself. Every single memory staring at myself in a reflective surface over the years was a ridiculous little lie. I imagined what I might look like to other people, a young woman with creamy skin splattered with freckles. I was told my eyes were blue, though I wasn’t exactly sure which shade. I hoped they were the color of the deep sea; surely that would be beautiful and alluring.
One day, I would break this dreadful curse and see myself the way others did. I knew this to be true, and I hung onto that truth as I picked a leaf off my floor. Twirling the dried stem in my fingers, I carried it outside. Once I stood on the stone steps of my longhouse, I stretched my spine and crushed the fragile alder leaf in my hand, savoring each note of the music it made as it turned to dust.
Mindlessly sprinkling the remains over my dying summer garden, I peered out at where Tove chased flies in the distance and tried not to think about why there were so many in the first place. The orange feline was a ferocious little thing and would have certainly caught each of the flying pests, had his paws not passed through their tiny, winged bodies. Like a cat with a ray of light, he never seemed to mind that he rarely caught his prey. Tove simply kept at his hunt, always managing to pull a laugh from me in the process as he tumbled and jumped into the air like a mad hare.
“Morning, Kari!” Hilda Akesdotter called out as she beat a hanging tapestry in front of her longhouse. Dust particles danced around her, pulling a cough from the old woman. She waved a wrinkled hand in front of her face, her wiry grey hair gently bending with the breeze.
“Morning Hilda! Careful around that dust, my friend, or I’ll need to fix you up another breathing tonic earlier than I should have to.”
“Oh, always looking out for me girl.” The woman’s warm smile created crow’s feet around her eyes. She dropped her hand and her smile as she stared off into the distance. “What are you watching today?”
Hilda tilted her head toward Tove and the flies, her curiosity hanging in the air longer than the dust. She often wondered what I spent so much time looking and chuckling at despite myself. I followed her gaze and paused for a moment as I took inthe area around my beloved cat for something she may have seen with those old eyes of hers. “The flies. There are more of them today.”
“That there are.” Hilda’s expression soured as she averted her eyes. They lingered on her tapestry, handmade despite her failing vision. “No worries, child. There are people to carry that burden for us. Thank the gods for that.”
“Mmm,” was all I said as my head bobbed.
The gods,I thought to myself.There are about a million other beings I would thank first.
Not long after going back inside, I’d finished the bowl and set the warped thing to the side to bake in the upcoming days. I dipped my hands in a pail of water, washing them clean of dirt, though they stayed mildly stained a burnt orange around my nails.
I gathered my woven basket, keeping the thin layer of fabric at the bottom, though Tove didn’t need the aged scrap anymore. I’d yet to remove it, more for me than for him, though I hoped he found comfort in it too—emotionally, of course. The cat was rarely corporeal long enough to feel much of anything physically.
“My sinister boy!” I called as loud as my pride would allow. “It’s time for the market.”
